Blog o cestovaní nielen po Japonsku / Travel blog

22. April 2014

19. apríl – Suginami Animation Museum, Toei Animation

EN: Two days after my visit of JAXA and Ghibli museum I decided to finish up all my plans related to Anime. As I had the Suginami Animation Museum on my list, that was my first stop. The museum is located in the multipurpose building, so take care where you’re going – it’s on the third floor, as far as I remember. This little gem can be considered as one of the first attempts to put together Anime stuff from various animation studios into one place, you can find a rather comprehensive library of Manga and Anime over there, all of the printouts in Japanese, of course. The museum is quite interactive, visitors can try out various steps in Anime production process, with animation tablets for drawing, etc. The most important things in the museum are also written/presented in English, so even foreign visitors can get the elementary understanding of animation process. You can take pictures, but once again there are rooms and one particular floor, where it’s forbidden.

After Suginami Animation Museum I headed towards Toei Animation Gallery – the place where the oldest Anime studio in Japan presents its production. The films made by this company are well-known in the US and in Europe, Toei co-produced Princess Mononoke with Ghibli, but there are more famous TV series, which made it famous – Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Digimon, Kanon (co-operation with Key), Space Battleship Yamato and One Piece. I believe the most famous and probably most frequently broadcasted work by Toei in Europe were the videos for Daft Punk’s album Discovery, which together created the theatrical musical film called Interstella 555. Since Toei created even one of my most favorite shows Lovely Complex, I couldn’t miss the visit of this place. Toei Animation Gallery is, however, mostly concentrated on the fans from Japan, the staff over there was actually rather surprised that a foreign person appeared on their doorstep. There is nothing in English, only some of the names of the series on the production timeline, which is hanging on the wall, so don’t expect miracles. The best part about the visit is that every visitor receives several frames of one of the Toei’s films as a gift, which is a very nice souvenir for every Anime fan. It’s still worth a visit though, especially if you are one of them.